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Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Tim Bray received an email from the Patent Office’s new PR firm touting their Stop Fakes website. It is written in the energetic style of hype PR:

And the email itself? Here’s a sample: “Can bloggers help? Yes! The USPTO is well aware of the impact bloggers have and the important role they play. As an online opinion leader you can help small businesses protect the intellectual property of small businesses in one of several ways: Write about the site in your blog...” ...

So, let’s put this simply. Dear USPTO, you’re lying. If you actually read bloggers you’d know that the few who write about you think you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution

I think the tone of the USPTO pitch is a trifle condescending. When I pitch bloggers I treat them the same way I treat journalists. Even if they are amateurs, it is an error to suppose they are flattered to receive a pitch from a professional flack. Quite the reverse in fact.

Having said that, I think Mr. Bray is a little harsh. This site offers a general introduction to the patent system and its advantages for small business. Even if you think our current system has, er, room for improvement, this site strikes this observer as a good, if incomplete, introduction.

Here is how I might have written it:

Dear _______, Too often small businesses fail to file for patents because they don’t understand how patents can protect their business. The USPTO has developed a website for small businesses to give them an introduction to the patent process and describe its advantages.

I would not make this pitch to tech blogs. Instead I would send it to marketing, legal, venture capital, and small business blogs, who are less likely to take such a harsh view of the Patent Office.

Monday, August 29, 2005

I recently got the Gotham Gal a new Mac mini for her office. I signed her up for iTunes and configured it to use the same account everyone uses. She bought some music and when she went to play it, she got the message that the account can only serve 5 users. So she bought the music, paid for it, and she can't even play it on her own computer. That's the DRM wreaking havoc on our home music system.

I am old enough to remember 45’s. They were great; you just bought a song if you liked it and could play it on any record player. The only defect was that sometimes you liked songs that were never released as singles. Digital music gets passed all that because you can make any mix that suits your fancy. If the entertainment conglomerates would stop trying to control this and offer the digital version of the 45, fully portable, they could make a fortune. They are controlling their industry to death.

Although XML was first adopted by commercial businesses in the 1990s, law enforcement IT managers worldwide soon embraced it as a tool for smoothing processes such as the distribution of police arrest reports to prosecutors or officers in other jurisdictions. But for years, "it was missing a vocabulary for law enforcement," Wormeli said.

GJXML provides a data model, a data dictionary and schemas tailored to law enforcement. Those tools free agencies from writing custom interfaces for data sharing. "It's being adopted by law enforcement at breakneck speed," Wormeli said.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

* No HTML email. HTML email opens all sorts of possibilities for hiding things. Train your users to expect short and simple messages.

* No links in email. Always refer to the bookmark you encourage users to create from their paper statements.

* All your websites must belong to you, and show up under your domain. Do not acclimatize users to treat other URLs as yours. If you get your users used to sites with names like "cb.pharmphr33.supersecure.com," then you shouldn't be surprised that they don't get worried when they are phished there.

* Fire people who violate these rules. Give a substantial finders fee to the first person who reports the violation. Give the money to both employees/whistleblowers and customers.

Volunteers from industry and government are working to define the most common architecture terms, from “application” to “Extensible Markup Language schema.” “Having support helps,” said Ira Grossman, chairman of the forum.

Because the wiki is a public site, people can immediately start commenting on the definitions, but a formalized process will be set up in the next two or three months, Grossman added. Further rounds of rewriting, editing and reviewing still need to be completed, he said.

As Americans, we can be very proud that our government has set a new precedent for open discussion for software standards. I trust others will embrace this approach.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

It seems that the latest target for those in the identity theft business is the jury system, as Jur-E was made aware of two separate cases this week in which jury programs were being used as a vehicle for obtaining individuals' personal information.

This year we are especially interested in receiving submissions from the public sector (local, state, and federal governments.) For 2006, our re-charged, revved up Conference sessions will be divided into five themes:

Sunday, August 21, 2005

The IJIS Institute has announced the opening of a GJXDM national virtual help desk to serve developers in government and industry who are working on implementing the Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM). More than a conventional help desk, the GJXDM Help Desk will contain a significant knowledge base that users can access over the web, and then submit unanswered questions via the web or telephone. The help desk is staffed in three levels of response. Level 1 will be staffed directly by the IJIS Institute to provide the basic responses to questions and build the knowledge base in addition to managing the project. Specific domain expertise will be available as Level 2 support from the National Center for State Courts and SEARCH, the national consortium on integrated justice. Further support from technical expertise of member companies and the Georgia Tech Research Institute will be available for the most difficult technical questions.

The goal of the help desk is to get answers back to developers within 24 hours wherever possible. The operation will keep open hours of 8 am to 8 pm eastern time to ensure service to the west coast during afternoon hours.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Question for you PR spokespeople: If a blogger called you today and wanted a comment on an issue involving your company or your client, would you return the call? Would you go on record with a blogger?

How would a non-response ever serve a client’s interest? And since when were flacks too great and grand to talk to anyone? As for going on the record, is there any other way to go?

Friday, August 19, 2005

Like other government entities, the District of Columbia (DC) has seen the volume of unstructured content in their business documents and communications grow exponentially. While this content is generated electronically, it is not currently managed in a manner that enables business users and decision-makers to easily access critical embedded information. The DC government decided they had to do something. The objective of the resulting initiative is to develop an Integrated e-Document Management (IeDM) strategy to address strategic, process, organization, performance, and technology issues. The project includes four phases. Phase I - Analysis and Strategy, was completed on July 26th; 2005. Phase II - Policy, Pilots, Architecture and Solutions is planned to be completed in November 2005. Phase III - Initial Deployment within Pilots will follow. A final Phase IV will focus on a phased in DC Government enterprise Deployment.

This presentation will discuss the tangibles (the deliverables to date) which include the Current state assessment, Document and records standards review, Strategic options for implementing an IeDM strategy across the District, Select pilot applications, Cost benefit analysis and a Deployment strategy for effectively implementing the IeDM strategy across the District. Even the intangibles will be discussed and that's no ordinary story.

During his appearance before CPCUG, Rob Pegoraro spoke generally about his beat, story selection and his views on technology. He is looking for consumer technology that is past the early adopter stage but not quite mass market. He described his bias and being in favor of ease of use; he is not enthusiastic about products which require extensive tinkering. Pegoraro indicated that anytime he spends more than thirty minutes setting up, it is unlikely to be a friendly review. Apparently it is customary for companies’ PR departments to offer a special technical support lines for journalists in a hurry. Friends, if a journalist won’t be able to make deadline with your regular technical support, that is a clue your technical support is inadequate.

Note - Pergoraro spoke disparagingly of the PR department PowerPoint presentations and large media kits that invariably accompany product shipments. I have never heard a reporter say a kind word for media kits, except for the online variety, so why do we keep sending them?

Arianna Huffington has started a series styled the Judy file, consisting of droppings from New York Times’ anonymice. Imagine what it is like to be Bill Keller right now, wondering which reporters are dishing dirt. Imagine what it is like to come under unjust suspicion for leaking. What are the chances that the anonymice have created an atmosphere of distraction and distrust? Now you know what the worker bees in your government have been putting up with for the last thirty years.

It is remarkable to go to a Washington IT event when one of these scandals is breaking. In the same room you have the worker bees for the government agency issuing subpoenas, the worker bees for the agency receiving subpoenas and the marketing representatives from the litigation support software companies. Mostly everyone is oblivious to the passing storm; but tension is not far from the surface. Industry analysts that have spoken to such groups will tell you that Washington, DC audiences are like no other.

Huffington makes it embarrassing clear that she has no idea what this story is about with this unseemly offer:

And for any employees of the Alexandria Detention Center who may have been monitoring the Bolton-Miller visit: feel free to give us a call or drop us an e-mail. The Judy File promises to protect your identity... even if it means taking the cell next to Judy’s.

that it is the policy at ALEXANDRIA not to give out the names of visitors (in fact, the deputy we spoke with there said that he wasn’t sure they would give it out even with a subpoena).

This story is partly about reporters and editors who thought their stories were more important than the law. The proper operation of our jails is far more important than Huffington’s ridiculous little blog. It is not morally acceptable to openly solicit the employees of correctional institutions to violate procedures. Huffington needs to clean up her act.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

The public does not like us. They think we are sneaky, manipulative and duplicitous. We are supposed to be in the business of making a good impression on the public; yet the public does not like us. It’s embarrassing. How can we change it?

Some have said we should find a way to drive out the bad apples and end bad practices. I just don’t think that is possible. Bad clients hire bad practitioners.

What I do think is possible is to educate the public about the ordinary business of professional communications. That is part of what Global PR Blog Week 2.0 is all about. For one week, September 19 - 23, fifty-three PR professionals from twelve counties will present seventy-one articles about communications and public relations. It will all be online and free to the public. Anyone will be able to read it and judge for themselves the nature of our work. I think the public will be pleased.

Looks like it is is going to be consumer oriented. With a $4.95 cover price it is difficult to see how it is going to compete with Tom’s Hardware or the gadget blogs. But after years of watching magazines fold it is thrilling to see a new title launch.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

As the media landscape continues to divide and audiences become increasingly fragmented, is it that far fetched to think the boundaries between what may now be separate, unrelated industries will soon blur? Perhaps even become one? Case in point, as companies look for new ways to directly engage with customers online, it doesn’t take a big leap of the imagination to think that customer service and PR may soon cross paths, err, mash-up. Gasp!

Since February, 2000, close to 450 schools have received free hardware, free training on the OpenLab operating system and subsidized telephone service to help get the nation's young people online. It's all part of the plan to empower youth through internet access.

Through a number of ambitious strategies such as its adoption of a Linux Terminal Server thin-client networks, its dedication to the open source movement and its fledgling wireless and solar plans, the prize-winning operation has begun to realize a vision of Namibia where all students have not just access to the internet, but the skills to participate in the digital revolution.

It’s not just that the operating system is free, it’s that these schools can make whatever modifications to the source code they deem necessary. This is the next generation of programmers and they are unlikely to have much patience with the inconvenience of proprietary systems.

Foreigners did not seem too enthused by US Treasuries in June, according to data on Monday that underlined a recurring theme of recent months – fears that China’s revaluation and a more general trend towards diversification might mark a turning point in Asian central bank buying of US assets.

The Treasury’s monthly portfolio flow data showed overseas investors bought a net $7.9bn of US Treasuries, the lowest level since September 2003.

Mark Cuban of Ice Rocket has noticed that Blogger hosts a lot of dubious blogs. But is also hosts this one and hundreds of thousands blogs talking about everything from the war in Iraq, to marketing, to technology to every imaginable subject. I think it would be a pity if Ice Rocket users were to lose access to this conversation. Certainly Blogger needs to be aggressive against those who abuse its terms of service, but to cut off the free service is to cut the very quaility, along with its ease of use, that makes Blogger such a force for free speech.

The Global IP Alliance noted that, simply making the existing 9-1-1 system in the United States work for today's VoIP users is not satisfactory, even as it may be a suitable stop-gap measure for those consumers who have already migrated over to VoIP services as a replacement for their former POTS service.

Monday, August 15, 2005

DO NOT EDIT as you write! This is the biggest time-waster on earth. If you really want to avoid the task at hand, then go ahead and examine each and every sentence under a microscope as soon as you type it. But if you want to actually finish your piece of writing some day, don't edit yourself until you complete at least some semblance of a first draft.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Computer rage is becoming a big problem in our world today. Men and women are taking out their frustrations on the computer; and unfortunately, sometimes misdirecting it to other people. In the work place and at the home, more and more people are smashing their computer screens, beating on the keyboard, and throwing the computer out the window. What is to be done? Should we calm the user, control their behavior, and channel their anger to different outlets?

Saturday, August 13, 2005

AUGUST 10, 2005 (TECHWORLD.COM) - Microsoft Corp. has taken the wraps off a new security program that uses automated "HoneyMonkeys" to patrol the Web, seeking out sites that automatically install malicious code on Windows XP systems.

In its first month, the Strider HoneyMonkey research project located 752 Web addresses linking to 287 sites that could automatically infect unpatched machines, Microsoft said. The project also discovered an attack that could penetrate a fully up-to-date Windows XP Service Pack 2 system using a previously unknown vulnerability.

Microsoft first discussed the HoneyMonkey program in May and last week published a research paper discussing the details.

The project is relatively limited in scope; It only looks for code that can be installed with no user interaction, leaving out the more sophisticated and increasingly successful attacks relying on social engineering -- attacks such as phishing.

Friday, August 12, 2005

Ragan has seen fit to launch a blog on government communciations from a senior level unidentified source. Notice that it is a blog on government communciations, no where do they actually assert that is is written by a civil servant. The author is a senior level unidentified source. Senior level what? Ragan does not say. The author could be a senior level anything.

I am flattered to be quoted in his first post, even without attribution:

I have heard pr people say, “If you can’t say it on the record, you shouldn’t say it at all.” The reason they say this is because they confuse going off the record with leaking. …

I have lived in the greater Washington, DC area almost all my life and I am perfectly familiar with all the sophist distinctions-without-a-difference in this nasty game.

Going on background can legitimately accomplish at least two things. It can allow you to explain a complex situation in detail without having to worry that little bits and pieces of your explanation are going to end up in quotes—out of context—with your name attached, thereby making you look like an idiot.

Any reporter who is capable of twisting your words for the purpose of making you look like an idiot is quite capable of burning a source

Open Source Development Labs, the trade body for Linux research, has launched a patent commons project, providing a central repository of software patents and patent pledges to make access easier for the open source development community.

Al Gore's Current TV is partnering with Google, and if the Google Beta is a success, he won't need cable TV to carry his programming. In fact, cable TV could become rather irrelevant if this web-based on-demand video succeeds.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

If you’re trying to figure out the most effective ways to plug blogs, RSS, wikis and podcasting into your PR strategies to achieve amazing results, PR University’s intensive one-day workshop on how to take command of these exploding technologies is your answer. This high-level forum will focus on exactly how these technologies are revolutionizing corporate messaging and how you can harness them—now. This is a singular opportunity to meet, question and learn with and some of the world’s leading experts—all in one place. You’ll hear from: Steve Rubel, David Berger, Mark Jen, Brooke Gladstone, Pete Blackshaw, Craig Newmark, Sally Falkow, Bill Flitter, Eric Schwartzman, Dan Forbush and Jay Stockwell. These workshops will be held on September 9 at the Crowne Plaza Times Square in Manhattan and on September 16 at the Hilton Hotel and Towers in San Francisco. For full details, phone 1-800-959-1059 or use the button below, but—be advised—space is limited, and these workshops are guaranteed to fill up fast.

Don't let someone's ability to speak well confuse your judgment of their technical abilities. (And if you're not a technical manager, learn the product and how the product is created so you can have reasonable conversations about how your staff is working.) Listen to what people say in your one-on-ones. See what they accomplish and when. See when they are stuck. Use this kind of data to determine how well a person is succeeding. Then you'll know if all they have is hot air, or if they are competent.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Laptops now advertise hard drives of 60, 80 or 100 gigabytes, but you always get less than that. First, everybody in the industry uses a definition of "gigabyte" that artificially pads out the size of the drive by about 7 percent. (The laptop reviews on Page F7 list the correct figures.) Second, many vendors of Windows laptops use some of the hard drive to hide a set of system-recovery programs, including a backup copy of Windows, instead of providing those on separate CDs or DVDs.

We all read product reviews; besides shaping our purchases and dealings with technology, they often determine product and company success or failure. The Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro has covered personal technology for more than a few years and shared more than a few opinions with readers. An always-engaging speaker, he'll describe how he reviews products, including selecting review items, dealing with vendors, structuring and performing reviews, and enjoying reader feedback.

From Tom Murphy’s indespensible PR summary, we learn of David Rossiter’s post on the difference between communicating with industry analysts and the press.

Journalists are interested in getting coverage. That is their raison d’etre. Good stories – and especially scoops - lead to a healthy career. Poor stories – or worse, no stories – mean the journalist loses their job. However, while media coverage is important to many IT companies can it really compare to the influence that analysts can bring to bear?

Analysts are interested in gaining market insight. It puts them in a better position to advise their clients on how to gain strategic advantage. And that’s critical.

Monday, August 01, 2005

The Integrated Justice Information Systems Institute, whose members are IT companies that support law-enforcement and Justice Department operations, uses RSS and Atom feeds that came built into its blogging software from Traction Software Inc. to keep committee members up to date on recent developments. "Some of our more technical committees that had some familiarity with RSS saw immediately how they could use that inside their workspace to provide a publish-and-subscribe capability so they don't have to rely on going hunting to see if there's something new in their committee work," executive director Paul Wormelli says.

The institute uses grant money to help state and local agencies adopt new technology, and committee members regularly publish papers that require comment from members in other locations. The benefit Wormelli sees is that information distribution becomes automatic. "No one has to initiate the distribution of information using an RSS feed," he says. "The main purpose is to put things in an E-mail form without anyone having to take the action to do that, and to not force stuff on people that they don't want to take the time to look at."

Minority Leader Harry Reid clearly recognizes the value of lefty blogosphere, or netroots as some are calling it. He has done interviews with Buzzflash and Dohiyi Mir. If you want to get your point across, a sympathetic interviewer may be a better venue than Sunday morning TV. Business can learn a lot from this.